Tyler Joseph Quotes

You know, the record business is much different than being artist on stage.

I never had to ask Def Jam for anything.

Roc Nation has an army. I'm happy because this is what I needed. I have the music, but they have the muscle.

I started my music career at 18 and for a long while I let other people handle my affairs.

Doing things in my day was simple: you either signed to a big label or you signed to a very small label, and you worked with that one, and then they eventually signed you on to a big one.

At the end of the day, you sign a record deal and you understand where it could go if you had the right song.

More labels should be like that. Instead of putting these records out myself, I should have just signed with them, but they probably don't like my music (laughs).

I am a singer first and foremost. I was lucky enough to have a manager, when I was 15, who knew the heads of a lot of record labels at the time.

I'm from Israel, so America has no limits. I started a record label, and then I started managing other artists, like Liza Minelli.

I once worked at a record label called London Records. The company was owned by Roger Ames, one of the most successful figures in the British music industry. Roger always placed a value on loafing, on holidays, on not being in the office all the time.

If anything, I'm the most hesitant to bring on a label. That terrifies me. I think people believe major labels are linked to success. They're absolutely not that.

I walked away from the Jive Records situation, but I still have a great relationship with a lot of the workers and a lot of people who were in that system that have moved on to other places. I felt like being there; it totally wasn't understood what the Raheem DeVaughn movement was about.

I wanted to play in bands and get signed by a record label and tour the world and stuff, but that never really worked out.

I want to invest and have my own record label and artists. I want to have a business where my kids, kids, kids will still have something going on long after I'm gone.

Coming into the business, you'd pass through these little agencies until you got to understand what was happening in the business, unless you were really able to have a style strong enough to go directly to the publishers.

I had to get out of my record deal that I signed with my previous band and get a full solo record deal going so, with all of the paperwork that, that entails it did take a while.

Well, I had a record deal since I was 18, and it got me where I am.

So there was a way for you to get promoted and survive as an artist without worrying about AM radio hits.

When I finished Westlife, we had - Louie Walsh is still managing me - I was lucky to have options from different labels such as Sony and Universal. When we met Capitol and Nick Raphael, I just believed in them the most, and it looked like they believed in me the most.

The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.

I certainly don't want to be a record label guy.

If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.

I was signed by L.A. Reid on Arista Records when I was 16. He understood me and believed in me. Arista folded and I got put on RCA or whatever, then there were new people there, and every six months it changes and more new people come in.

As an independent artist, you're always figuring out how you're going to fund your next album.

I remember telling the head of Warner Brothers that if they'd just make a video for 'Ol' Red'... and if it didn't work, they could drop me from the label.